


Like Flowers Trying to Live

by Everdistant



Category: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drinking, Gen, Tsubasa and Maria die instead of Kanade and Serena AU, also there's flashbacks to maria's death so, but kanade's legal so its okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 23:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13375212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everdistant/pseuds/Everdistant
Summary: Serena's alive, and maybe that's okay.





	Like Flowers Trying to Live

Serena doesn't exist to solve everyone's problems, contrary to popular belief.

It's a bitter thing to think, but the bitterness is comfortable. Like dark chocolate. It warms her up. Overindulging would be terrible, of course. But the thought, once or twice, lifts her spirits.

She exists beyond the people around her. It's important to remind herself of that.

Why is she reminding herself of that right now? Because she's stepped out of a relaxing shower only to find a fluffy redhaired giant on her couch.

Worst of all, it isn't even Genjuro.

"Kanade," Serena says at length, sounding out each syllable of the name as she steps around the couch. She's at least decent - she prefers to change right out of the shower. It's an ingrained habit, from when showering and leisure time were limited.

Kanade shifts at each sound Serena makes, lifts her hand up from the floor and shakes it in Serena's general direction. She has a beer can in her hand, and Serena mourns the memory of a couch that doesn't smell like booze.

"So, do you want to talk about it, or?" Serena starts, pulling herself up to sit on the armrest of her couch. Kanade has so much sheer Kanade to her that she's taken up the actual seats. Serena wishes she'd bought that cute little recliner to pair with her couch. At least then Kanade would have collapsed into that, and she'd be able to lounge after her shower.

Kanade grumbles wordlessly into the couch, then finally lifts her head up. "Nothin' to talk about," she slurs, before flopping right back down. Serena, ever the peacemaker, nods in agreement.

"Okay, let's talk about how you got into my house," Serena says instead, voice as amicable and sweet as she can make it.

"I'm the boss. I got a key."

"You had the key to my government-issued apartment. I bought this house with my own money. This has nothing to do with the government."

"Sure, sure," Kanade dismisses, waving a hand up off of the couch, can moving with it.

Serena, still with a bright smile on her face, reaches for her phone and calmly begins to dial. "Oh, hello, Operator? A vagrant's broken into my home, it's simply terrible -"

Kanade surges upwards at that one, grabbing Serena about the waist and dragging her onto the couch. Kanade doesn't seem truly angry until Serena starts to giggle.

"Fuck off, you -" Kanade swears as she scrambles for Serena's phone, finally managing to snatch - knock, really - it out of her hands. Serena's damp hair's spread out over the side of the couch, sticking to the sides of Kanade's arms, and Serena thinks it's a soothing sensation.

Even though Kanade's the one feeling it.

"Sorry, wrong number!" Kanade yelps and hangs up, which does nothing to stop Serena's giggling. Especially not when the phone in Kanade's pocket vibrates as soon as she does.

Serena pulls back from the little pile they've wound up, hugs her knees to her chest as Kanade fumbles her own phone out of her pocket.

"One missed... call..."

Kanade stares at Serena. Serena, adult that she is, giggles anew.

"I'mma chuck this at your head," Kanade promises.

"Oh, dear, but what if it's one of the explosive ones?" Serena gasps, hands to her cheeks. Kanade's flat, unimpressed expression is so rare on her, and Serena allows herself a little pride that she's the only one that can get it out of her.

"You were way less of a pain when I met you, you know," Kanade finally whines, rubbing the back of her impressive mass of hair as she pockets her phone. Helpfully, she lowhands Serena's phone back to her, as well.

"I was trying to kill you," Serena chimes in as she catches her phone.

"Yeah."

"Fair enough."

There's silence for a whole five seconds before Kanade flops forward, buries her face in Serena's shoulder. Serena, like a good denmother, reaches her hands up to Kanade's back, fingers threading through untamed hair.

"Sometimes I feel like it should have been me," Kanade murmurs into her skin. Her voice isn't sad, or reflective - it's a statement of fact, a quiet admittance.

"Mmhm," Serena hums back, because there's nothing she can say.

\---

Maria's fist closes around her pendant, tears it from her neck, and she runs towards the Nephilim.

\---

"Is this the one you two were looking at?" Serena asks, stepping around the bed, picturing it stuffed into the bedroom of Kirika and Shirabe's apartment. The two of them have been pushing single beds together for months now, and they're finally upgrading to a queen-sized.

Serena, somehow, has become a homemaker. It had started when S.O.N.G. had supplied her with her own apartment in Japan - she'd just wanted it to look home-y. She'd imagined she wouldn't be around often, what with overseas concerts, but she'd wanted somewhere she could set her suitcases down and feel relaxed in.

A dresser here, a lamp there. A cute little couch, a bookshelf. The apartments weren't large, but Serena had made the best of the space. Genjuro, the one time he'd come to see how she was settling in, had commented on it. Then some Japanese television show had wanted to do a piece on her, and she'd mentioned she had a home in Japan, and...

Well, Chris had wanted advice on a good couch for herself. An entertainment center for her TV and DVD-players. Miku had asked after anything to make use of the enormous size of the dorm rooms at her school. And now this is Serena's hobby, one way or another - picking out furniture for dinky little apartments.

Which brings her here. To this queen-sized, and two very excited teenagers holding hands two feet behind her.

"Are you sure... well, no, Kanade manages to fit a king-sized in hers. You two will be fine."

Kirika and Shirabe look excited. Serena flattens her palm against the mattress, tests the weight of her body against it. Kirika and Shirabe weigh like three pounds between them, so a simple lean's plenty.

"It feels a little... sink-y?" Serena tests out, trying to figure out the word. "Soft, I guess. Do you two like that?"

"I do," Shirabe nods.

"I don't!" Kirika chirps, and then the two of them look at each other.

Serena can already tell this is going to be a long day.

\---

Maria sings, and everything Serena is bleeds out of her.

\---

Serena's Airgetlám isn't much for attacking. She'd thought it was something inherent to the thing, but Elfnein had told her while repairing it that it had to do with her personality. Kirika's gear had evolved more defensive abilities when she'd first joined S.O.N.G. proper, because she had more to protect. According to Kanade, Chris's Ichaival used to be something purely meant for ranged combat, and there's a thought.

Like how the songs are born from their subconscious thoughts, their relics adapt to them. Serena supposes it makes enough sense. Her Ame-no-Habakiri had been an ugly thing, coiled blades wrapping around her like snakes. Compared to Hibiki, who somehow manages to make a few spikes and gauntlets shaped a bit like katars look heroic, they don't even seem like the same thing.

Speaking of, Hibiki's knee is currently trying to drive one of those spikes into her side, so she hops backwards. With a flick of her wrist, the daggers reappear in her hand, and she tosses them outwards. Hibiki, of course, bats them away with a flick of *her* wrist.

If training with Genjuuro does that to you, Serena wonders if she should start. It might be quicker progress than sparring in the simulator, anyway. Especially since Hibiki's the one who most often takes her up on it.

"Ah! You okay, Serena?" Hibiki squawks across the six, seven feet that separate them. Serena takes the chance to swirl her fingers in the air, guiding the daggers back over to herself. She catches them between her fingers.

"I'm fine," Serena promises. "I was just distracted for a second."

"Don't think!" Hibiki chirps, pumping her fist up into the air. "Feel!"

Serena takes that advice on board, but she feels like an idiot, so it doesn't help much.

The two of them restart the match, but Serena's heart isn't in it - she forms a barrier that Hibiki kicks through. Hibiki knows all of her little tricks, like sending two daggers from the front and one around, or bouncing the daggers off of each other.

"That one isn't even from an action movie!" Serena protests as Hibiki winds her way through the ricocheting, overlapping daggers.

"I play fighting games!" Hibiki calls back, and that is extremely not an answer Serena can accept. But then Hibiki's fist in her face, and of course she stops short, flicks her nose instead of actually punching her.

It doesn't help that Hibiki buys her lunch afterwards, despite Serena's repeated protests that she has far more money than Hibiki will ever see in her life.

"Sure, but it makes me happy to treat you!"

Also, Serena doesn't like okonomiyaki, and doesn't have the heart to tell her.

\---

Maria is torn apart from the inside out.

\---

"You don't have to come with me," Serena says, in a way that means 'please don't come with me.' She climbs into her car, already putting the seatbelt into place. Annoyingly, Chris climbs into the passenger seat.

"We have to stick together because of the training or whatever, right?" Chris grumbles as she slides into place. "Besides, it's gross to say, but Ver saved my life too. Might as well pop in."

"Now you really shouldn't come along," Serena sighs, but she knows she can't ward Chris off of it. Besides, having company is... comforting? She isn't sure. She's only ever been to the graves with Kirika and Shirabe, and those two have their own pains.

All three of them are buried separately - Ver, Nastassja, and Maria. She'd found Maria the nicest plot she could find in Japan, a place she'd never been, just because it was where Kirika and Shirabe were. Where Serena was, these days. They'd never made Maria a grave until then, anyway. The location didn't really matter.

Ver's grave isn't anywhere nice. Not out of spite, but she hadn't found the energy to go to the trouble. She'd at least found him a western style graveyard, a place that was a bit like home for an American. She sighs as the grass crunches beneath her feet, stepping past the graves of other foreigners, wondering over their stories. The country Serena's from, her 'home,' literally doesn't exist anymore. It's hard not to feel sympathetic towards people buried in a place so far from where God had set them down, even if she has nothing against Japan.

"Were you raised in America, Chris?" Serena asks, turning her head over her shoulder. Chris flinches, both at the sudden break in the silence and at the question.

"I think so? It's kinda hard to remember. I was like, five," Chris explains. "I know I saw Japan, America, Italy... lots of places. My parents moved around."

And ultimately moved somewhere they probably shouldn't have, but Serena knows better than to say that. And only knows half the story besides - which is part of the reason her and Chris aren't getting on so well. They still can't sync in the same way Kirika and Shirabe can.

"I'm from Yugoslavia," Serena says as they finally reach Ver's grave. She crouches down in front of it, brushes her fingers across the headstone. Chris tilts her head for a second.

"You read books, Chris," Serena sighs as she sets the flowers down, pats them for just a moment as she sits back up. Her dress moves with her, and she takes the time to brush it back down. "It wasn't a very... wealthy, place. Especially not our family. But we had each other, and we had a river out back that looked so beautiful in summer. And then..."

"You don't -" 'have to keep going,' Chris starts to say, clearly too kind for her own good. Serena shushes her down, waves her hand.

"I'm fine, Chris," Serena says. "I'm fine. I just... I miss home. And borders on a map or the shape of a flag don't matter to me, but that's why it hurts. The place Maria and I grew up, our family, was taken from us because of a thing like that. We weren't even old enough to understand why. It just... happened."

"... Yeah. I know what you mean," Chris says, and they both take in the silence for a little longer.

Nastassja's grave is next. Chris clearly doesn't know how to react, mostly because she doesn't know how Serena feels, and Serena almost appreciates that. But then, *she* doesn't know how she feels.

Mom, slavedriver, savior, commander - Nastassja was a lot of things, and right as Serena grew into a woman, she was finally gone from her life. It's been a long year, and Serena can still feel her influence on her, is still confused about what she should feel about her. She saved her and then unmade her, built her back up in her image. She - and Ver - are the ones who got Maria killed.

But then her warm, motherly smile appears in her vision.

"Mothers," Serena finally says, sighing as she watches the grave. "Are terrible people."

"No arguments here," Chris agrees, and they both move on.

Maria's grave, is, of course, picturesque. A single tree on a hill, a field of flowers around her, no other graves in sight. Serena has pop star money, she can pay for a good location and pay for a person to tend to it. Chris lets out a low whistle as they walk up, and Serena takes a little pride in that.

She likes making her own home look nice, she can at least make sure Maria's looks nice.

The scent of fresh flowers hits them as they walk up, and Serena treads carefully so as not to disturb any of them. She points to a row of lily of the valleys, bell-shaped, giggling at a fond memory.

"These were Maria's favorite. They're poisonous to have in your mouth, though - when we were little, I kept daring Maria to eat one. She wound up telling our mother on me."

She giggles a little more, and Chris laughs with her, more to be polite than anything else. Serena appreciates the gesture, and there's some genuine warmth in Chris's expression, at least.

"Man, you must have been the worst big sister ever," Chris jokes, and it's Serena's turn to flinch.

"I was... mm. Maria was older than me. By about a year. She was always so tall, and she'd try to put on a brave front, but it was really easy to tell when she was scared. I wound up stroking her hair until she fell asleep, some nights. So... I guess I felt a little bit like the big sister. Like I had to take care of her."

Serena crouches down in front of the grave, reaches into her purse for a cloth to wipe away just a bit of the dust. "This is Chris Yukine," Serena introduces in Slovene. Maria and her had spoken English, when they were at the institute, but it wasn't the language of their childhood. "She's a little grumpy, but she means well. When she gets nervous, she reminds me of you."

"Okay, I don't know what you just said, but it sounded kind of annoying," Chris snarks as she approaches, sitting down on the grass next to the grave.

"It was," Serena chimes in, back to Japanese, and Chris groans.

"Next time I'm talking to my folks, I'm gonna tell them I'm friends with a fussy furniture salesman."

"Oh, that sounds fun - should I change careers?" Serena giggles again, smiling over at Chris, and then turns back to Maria.

"As you can see," she hums for a second, struggling over words in a language she's already half-forgotten. "We're all getting closer to each other. It's a little painful, sometimes, but we're all doing our best. So don't worry."

\---

Maria turns towards her, and she's smiling through the pain.

\---

"Miku, you don't need to look at every coffee table in the store," Serena sighs as she follows the other girl around, hardly even paying attention to the furniture at this point. Her and Miku are friends, of course, but she'd never thought they were close enough for her to be dragged around for an hour.

Well, if it was dinner, or a movie, Serena'd enjoy it. But Miku is evidently the pickiest little princess in the world, and just *has* to find a perfect table for shoveling food down Hibiki's mouth.

Well, if she thinks about it being for that, she supposes she understands Miku's worries. Feeding Hibiki is like holy communion. It deserves some respect.

"Oh, but Serena! I just want to make sure I get a good deal -" Miku drawls it all out, as dramatically as possible. And when Serena's about to reply, Miku gets a text on her phone.

"Excuse me," she says as she taps it open, tilts her head at it for a second, then promptly puts her hands to Serena's back.

"I think I've found a couple for my shortlist so let's get you back home don't you have a concert in a couple of days?"

"Miku, please remember to breathe when you talk?" Serena stammers back as she's pushed along, all the way out of the store, a few befuddled clerks in their wake.

"Don't you want to relax on one of your last days off? Jeez, I can't believe I dragged you out like this, what was I thinking?" Miku's still going at a mile a minute - Serena's almost worried about her hyperventilating.

Her place isn't far, and Miku drags her all the way home, stammering weird excuses the entire time. Serena sighs as she pushes the door open -

And is immediately blasted with a party popper in the face.

"Happy birthday!" Kirika chirps, and Serena blinks down at her as everyone else - up to and including Elfnein - peek out from behind her couch.

"We were supposed to all do it together," Shirabe murmurs. Kirika, of course, rubs the back of her head.

"Ehehe, but isn't it even MORE surprising this way? Like, wow, you thought you were just getting Kiri, but it's the whole gang!" Kirika waves her hands for dramatic effect.

"So do I still pop mine, or -" Hibiki glances around at the others, no less than three party poppers bunched up in her hands.

"Did any of you actually remember to get the cake out?" Miku sighs as she steps around Serena and Kirika, tut-tutting as she moves.

Chris for her part, just flops forward from the back of the couch to the front of it, waving everyone off. "Man, what's with you dumbasses? I thought maybe Hibiki's party going okay meant we had this down."

And somewhere along the way Kanade is suddenly behind Serena, scooping her up in her arms, hugging her tight. "Look, look, Serena doesn't care, guys. Right?"

There's a long moment, Serena *trying* to find voice for just about any of the emotions she's feeling right now. She can practically feel her lower lip quivering.

"... Eh? Kanade, you made Serena cry! She must not like high places!" Elfnein gasps, legitimate concern on her face.

"She lived on a helicarrier!" Kanade protests.

"Yeah, and it sucked!" Kirika chimes in, pointing an accusing finger at Kanade that Shirabe mirrors from behind the couch.

Serena's never felt more at home.

\---

Serena smiles back as she waves goodbye, grateful for everything Maria's given her.

**Author's Note:**

> if i got anything wrong about yugoslavia, blame it on symph's side details about europe being weird.


End file.
